


When the real magic happens

by toxic_virgo08



Category: Dr. STONE (Anime), Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, SenHaku Week, Soulmates, Stone Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25898287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toxic_virgo08/pseuds/toxic_virgo08
Summary: There’s an old Buddhist saying that, when you meet your soulmate, remember that the act to bring you together was 500 years in the making. So always appreciate and be kind to each other.Theirs was longer than that.
Relationships: Ishigami Senkuu/Kohaku
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	When the real magic happens

**Author's Note:**

> For Senhaku Week! <3  
> Aug. 14: Soulmates  
> Aug. 19: Starry Night Sky (I only realized this when I reviewed the prompts)
> 
> Prompts I used to get the plot moving were:  
> \- Every night you receive a message about a random sentence your soulmate has said that day.   
> \- You stopped aging at a certain age. When you meet your soulmate, you grow old together.

> _“Chrome, I think Ruri will look good with this flower on her hair.”_
> 
> _“Hold your act together, Ginrou! Look at who you’re fighting. Anticipate their next move.”_

It felt like a dream. Apart from his inner voice counting in his head, he thought he heard another voice utter those statements.

But how could he hear another voice when he had spent all eternity rotting away in this stone prison? No, not eternity. How long had it been – ah yes, 3,714 years had passed. His brain was working just fine. He felt himself slipping in and out of consciousness. It felt like he was floating in this dark abyss; everything was hazy, neither up nor down mattered.

The rational side of his brain firmly believed that once the petrification light shone from the skies that fateful day, he was rooted to his spot. Unless geological and astronomical processes brought him somewhere else. _Dad_. _Taiju. Yuzuriha. Where might they be?_ He knew he was entombed in this cement-like substance along with the whole population of the earth. In his mind’s eye, he saw the people dear to him. It did not matter if he opened his eyes or not, all that greeted him were gray and in a haze.

He cannot feel anything, his sense of smell cannot pick up anything to tell him where he was. His ears felt deafened by the thick stone encasement. It was a wonder how he heard her voice crystal clear. He returned to his counting, so he knew how long this petrification had been going on. He needed to count to perfectly match the season he will break out of his stone prison, even if it took all eternity. He did not desire to be just like the old dude Rip Van Winkle from his Literature class who fell asleep and woke up to a very changed world. Honestly, counting the hours that passed him by sometimes lulled him to sleep. But it was not enough to stay awake with just willpower, he needed enough oxygen to keep his brain from shutting down. Sleep seemed like the only solace he had under the circumstances. He was slowly slipping into unconsciousness.

That’s when he heard it again. The girls’ voice. There was nothing very special about that voice. Her tone was a bit different now. He just knew that the owner of the voice was the same even though her voice changed from a shrill child’s to a lady, probably around his age or a bit younger.

> _“Ruri needs warm water for her to feel better. Tell Father I’d gone to the hot spring.”_
> 
> _“I’ll be leaving for now. I’ll put guarding the bridge in your care, Kinro!”_

_Father. Kinrou. Ginrou. Ruri. Chrome._ Those were the constant names the voice always uttered. Every day without fail, he heard a random sentence she uttered that day. Some days were quieter than others. He assumed she was alone out there probably looking for food. Some days, when he assumed she was back with those people, it seemed she was training Kinrou and Ginrou.

To help him pass the time, he imagined different scenarios of what the present world might be. His eyes were so accustomed to the dark that when a tiny ray of light hit his eyes, he instinctively shut them tight. And then he heard dripping sounds, the fresh air was rushing inside his prison too. Bit by tiny bit, time after time, he witnessed how the revival fluid eroded his stone prison until the break was large enough he was able to observe his foreign surroundings.

The year was 5738, the first of April. After being petrified for 3,715 years and 241 days, Senku finally broke free of his stone prison. After he settled to make some tools and found a way to collect the revival fluid dripping from the cave, he had not heard of the voice again. He just shrugged it off as hallucination from being entombed for too long. His brain must have found a way to keep his senses sharp, that the voice he thought he heard was just phantom signals from his brain to keep him awake. When he reunited with Taiju, he did not tell him about the mysterious voice that may or may not be a product of his imagination. Thus, as Adam and Eve of the Stone Age, they began to work on the revival of their peers. First Yuzuriha, then with a twist of fate, Tsukasa.

When he and Tsukasa had conflicting interests regarding who gets to be de-petrified, he knew what was coming for him.

When he staged his death under the hands of Tsukasa, he went his own way from Yuzuriha and Taiju. Unknowingly, this event was witnessed by a person with whom he will be deeply involved with later on. Both of them did not know it at the time.

The first time he saw her was not exactly under the best of circumstances **[1]**. She was pinned under a heavy trunk with her internal organs at the danger of being crushed by the heavyweight of a very large tree Tsukasa intentionally positioned on her to stop her from her pursuit of him.

“You… You’re the gentleman sorcerer that protected that woman… You survived,” she managed to croak with that massive trunk weighing her down.

The beads of sweat forming on her forehead, her strained voice, the small cuts and abrasions on her appendages spoke of the urgency of her situation. Dirt and some blood caked her wounds sustained from fighting Tsukasa.

In his very Senku-way, he managed to come off as the polar opposite of what she just called him – gentleman sorcerer, while putting her safety ahead of any pleasantries. All he cared about was saving her from that heavyweight.

“Don’t waste your breath saying pointless things now. I’ll listen to your introductions all you want later. For now, preserve your strength. Can you hold out till night?” Senku asked as he was busy looking for objects that he can use as simple machines.

“If you’re already at your limit, I’ll go in with the little gunpowder I have left and try risking it to blow this off of you. But if you can hold out, then I’ll take enough time to make you wanna die, but I’ll be able to save you 10 billion percent!!!”

“You’re the only one that can answer this and I won’t know until you tell me! It’s one or the other, now decide!!!” The pallor of her face and palms caused Senku to raise his voice.

“I can hold out! My organs and bones are fine.” She breathed slowly while the not-so-gentleman sorcerer did his thing which turned out to be a really, really incredible innovation. Other than that, she saw how his belief in what he was doing saved her life. His tenacity added to his charm.

When the trunk was off of her, “My name is Kohaku. I think I’ve ended up really, really liking you.”

Once again, Senku brushed her off. “Agh, it seems you’ve gone and said something incredibly tiresome. A brain in love is the most illogical variety of trouble.”

When they reached Ishigami Village, He was busy gathering intel from Kohaku when two young people around his age attacked him from nowhere.

“Cease this violence now! Kinrou! Ginrou!” Kohaku demanded.

He was quite lucky Kohaku considered him a benefactor for his earlier good deed, or he would have found himself impaled with their sharp weapons. But what raised the alert level of his brain was the names she used to refer to them.

 _Kinrou. Ginrou_. Those were the names uttered by the voice in his head, or was it just in his head? Chances are low that the inhabitants of this village share the same name considering there were only forty of them. There has to be a connection between them and the voice he heard. From the argument the three are having, he surmised that only Kohaku explored out of the village. _Could the owner of the voice be Kohaku?_ The past years he counted dutifully to time his breaking free from his stone prison in spring season in the name of survival, one of the things that kept him going was her voice before he knew it was real and not just his mind conjuring it up.

The last straw that confirmed his growing suspicions was the arrival of this guy calling himself Chrome the genius sorcerer. So, the voice was hers alright, he was sure ten billion percent. He now recognized her voice from what he heard inside the stone prison. He did not dare ask her about this strange phenomenon. Her location was miles and miles away from where he was de-petrified. Everything can be explained by Science but this is a mystery even for him.

He compartmentalized the issue and placed it at the back of his mind, where he can revisit later. For now, more pressing issues begged for his attention such as looking for the source of the revival formula, building a civilization from scratch, and searching for the source of the petrification light.

Looking back, it was because of Kohaku that he found allies in the Ishigami Village in his quest to found the Kingdom of Science in the Stone Age. With her unwavering belief in him and in what he was doing, helping in his large-scale projects to restore the civilization they lost and even fighting alongside him against the Tsukasa Empire. He found a very valuable ally in her. And a friend.

Back in the day pre-petrification, he was never really sociable. With Ishigami Byakuya, the only people he allowed to ever get close to him were Taiju and Yuzuriha. Looking at him now, he never thought he could have friends he can count on even if he doesn’t allow himself to say it outright. He built a rapport with people of all ages from old man Kaseki to the sweet little child Suika. He even made allies with the people from his generation – Ukyo, Gen, Ryusui among others.

Under his leadership, he was able to design inventions that will usher in the era of civilization they once had and lost. Senku also knew how to motivate his allies. He learned when to push them, and when to stop and rest. Like now, with the insistence of Gen, they sat around a campfire built by Kinrou. From his observatory, Senku calculated that Perseid meteor shower will grace the night sky starting tonight until the next days. They can watch the shower with their naked eyes. There they sat waiting for the meteor showers expected to start after midnight and before dawn. Ryusui, Francois, Nikki, Ginrou, Ruri, Suika caught some Z’s in the tent they set up and requested to be woken up when the meteor showers started.

Senku looked around him. With no city lights and traffic, their current location had a perfect view of the entire night sky. A few feet from where they camped, there was a spot offering a wide and unobstructed view of the dark sky. He was silently thankful for Gen’s insistence to let the party watch the showers. The party consisted of him, Kohaku, Gen, Chrome, Kinrou, Taiju, Yuzuriha, and Ukyo.

With everyone lost in their own thoughts while waiting for the showers to start, he sensed Kohaku looking at him.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked.

“If you spot a meteor shower, did you know that what you’re seeing is the icy comet’s leftover that crash into Earth’s surface?”

She shook her head wordlessly. Her blue orbs still piercing him.

“Comets are like dirty snowballs. As they travel through the solar system, they leave behind a dusty trail of rocks and ice that linger in space long after they leave. When the earth passes through these cascades of comet waste, the debris pierce the sky at such speeds they burst, creating a celestial fireworks display **[2].** ”

She tilted her head to make sense of what he said.

“What we are about to see are the burning bits of the parent comet from its previous passes, not its most recent orbit,” from looking up at the sky, he switched to looking at her. “It takes more than a hundred years for the comet to travel through the Solar System. I was here then, and I’m still here now.”

Kohaku knew where he was going with this. She understood. He was referring to how he was petrified long enough for a comet to complete its orbit and still be able to watch its debris crash into the earth’s atmosphere as meteor showers.

She placed her hand on his arm and gave a reassuring squeeze, her blue eyes conveying an emotion he could not quite name before she blinked it all away. The shadows from the campfire made it hard to look for clues on her face.

Gen did not miss the tender gesture. He broke the comfortable silence of the group. “I think it’s remarkable that because of the petrification, we stopped aging at a certain age. Then in this Stone Age, one of us might meet their soulmate and probably grow old together.” He was addressing the group but he was looking at Senku and Kohaku, a knowing smile lingering on the corner of his lips. Taiju and Yuzuriha exchanged knowing glances.

It had already been two years since Senku allied with the Ishigami Village and eventually defeated the Tsukasa Empire. The events that transpired between then and now had not been a walk in the park either. Gen witnessed Senku and Kohaku’s relationship develop past the point where stress and different conflicts arose, how they reacted, and made their bond stronger. Gen was a witness to how true partnership developed between Senku and Kohaku, who although slowly, seemed to be realizing their feelings towards each other.

“There’s an old Buddhist saying that, when you meet your soulmate, remember that the act to bring you together was 500 years in the making. So always appreciate and be kind to each other **[3]**.” Gen still carried on. Taiju and Yuzuriha smiled at each other and then held each other’s hands.

Senku heard him. ‘ _What’s he going on about soulmates now,’_ he thought. And then he remembered how Kohaku’s voice had been with him at the latter part of his entombment. He had stopped looking for an answer as to how she got in his mind years before he even met her. He did not believe in soulmates. He dismissed the idea of a soulmate as a not very realistic notion. He fondly gazed at Kohaku just as the first bits and pieces of meteor showers graced the night sky. Chrome went to awaken the slumbering members of their party.

He and Kohaku walked to the spot which offered them a wide, unobstructed view of the sky. Their hands grazed each other as they walked at a slow pace, the others followed suit with a wide gap between them. In the dark, he caught Kohaku’s hand in his, lightly squeezing it before interlacing them. Kohaku turned to look up at him and flashed him a shy smile. At long last, they were finally holding hands while walking. This was a major milestone in Senku’s non-existent love life.

Strong, lasting bonds don’t just appear miraculously. He knew the chemistry of falling in love, that it all lies with hormones and neurotransmitters can easily be explained with science, but the how of it all baffled him. A stray thought ran through his mind, maybe believing in magic might not be too late. He knew that what he and Kohaku have right now, the mutual feelings he cannot explain nor define ~~(in reality, it was far from what he called a brain filled with love is troublesome),~~ is probably when the real magic happens.

**Author's Note:**

> Some footnotes:  
>  [1] I used the manga translations from https://w11.mangafreak.net/  
> [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/science/perseid-meteor-shower.html#:~:text=It%20is%20best%20to%20use,weather%20can%20obscure%20the%20shows.  
> [3] Gen was quoting from Criminal Minds S11 Ep02
> 
> When I was writing this, the electricity went out twice due to lightning so I posted this later than what I originally planned.


End file.
